


Machines

by ArcticBanana



Category: Mortal Kombat (Video Games)
Genre: Character Study, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Loosly inspired by Sektor's MK2011 ladder ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-10
Updated: 2020-04-10
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:00:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23584237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArcticBanana/pseuds/ArcticBanana
Summary: Turning Sektor into a cyborg was supposed to make him an emotionless and unstoppable killing machine. And in many ways it went horribly right.
Kudos: 5





	Machines

**Author's Note:**

> This is pretty much just a brief character study that I wrote after listening to the song “Machines” by All Good Things. It doesn’t quite 100% line up with canon, but it’s also not really meant to.

Sektor had far more self control than his father had anticipated after cyberization. The idea was that he’d be a mindless slave, loyal only to him, and for the overwhelming majority of the cyber-Lin Kuei, that was exactly what they were. Something about Sektor though had gone wrong, something beyond a misplaced decimal point or a spelling error in the code, or perhaps something had gone right in a very wrong way. He was smarter and more conniving than the others.

Sektor calculated and had determined that his father was unworthy of the title “Grandmaster”. The title should go to the strongest warrior in the Lin Kuei. His father was human. He held all their weaknesses and flaws and had none of the strengths of even the weakest of the cyborgs. He calculated some more and determined that even before the mass cyberization, he had not been the strongest of the Lin Kuei. That designation had previously gone to Sub-Zero, and following his death, Sektor had inherited the title. Now that Sektor had all of his flaws and inhibitions removed, there was really no reason that his father should still be the one in command.

Perhaps the Grandmaster had noticed something was off about Sektor. He didn’t like the way Sektor seemed to always be looking at him or perhaps he suspected that maybe something was wrong. He had sent Sektor off on some bullshit “mission” to keep him distracted and then ordered the rest of the Lin Kuei after him to exterminate him. The attempt had failed. Sektor tore through his would-be assassins like they’d been made of porcelain rather than steel alloy, and afterwards he was pissed.

One thing had definitely gone horribly right. Sektor lacked the inhibitions, morals, and emotions of his human self until the only thing he could feel at all was numbness. This was exactly what his father had wanted. What he hadn’t counted on was that these inhibitions, morals, and emotions were the only thing that had kept Sektor from killing his own father years ago.

Cyrax was the only one of the Grandmaster’s assassins to report back. When Sektor failed to return any automated reports or data and any attempts to send test data to him could not go through, he had confidence that his son had been deactivated. There was no way he could have turned those features off by himself.

Later that night the system received a ping and a flood of data came in from Sektor’s automated responses. He really couldn’t turn them off it turned out, but he had learned how to delay them and block oncoming data from being received as well. He’d essentially learned how to mask his vital signs and only allowed them to go through when it was already too late to stop him.

Sektor’s mother had been the one to answer the door. She’d been expecting someone and it certainly wasn’t the machine on the other side. His mother had been told that her son was dead, killed in the same tournament that had taken Sub-Zero’s life. The Grandmaster knew his wife would protest if she found out that her son had been expected to partake in the cyberization program as well and had convinced Sektor to go along with it. She’d been very emotionally distant towards her children, but she at least had standards.

At first she didn’t realize who she was looking at, but when he spoke to her next, she realized exactly what her son had become. “Hello, Mother,” Sektor said in a heavily digitized voice. Sektor caught the door with one hand to prevent her from slamming it shut in his face. “Is the Grandmaster home?” he asked.

His father tried everything: The emergency shut down code, which he discovered Sektor had found a way to change, a fail safe that was supposed to destroy Sektor’s central processor and effectively render him braindead in the event that simply turning him off wasn’t enough, but Sektor had disabled it somehow, and finally pleading, which did not work on an emotionless machine.

The wet blood was barely noticeable against the red metal. Sektor left red footprints trailing all the way from the front door, throughout the structure, and back again as he began to leave. The sound of a gasp caught his attention and he quickly turned his head, seeing his sister backed up against the wall, her hands tightly over her mouth as she tried not to cry or make a sound.

For a moment they stared at each other. It only took Sektor a second to search his memories and data banks to recall who she was. She was covered in bruises, some old, some new, the same ones he’d always be covered in, but the manner in which she had received them had been drastically different. Usually she’d be hit for speaking without being spoken to or for crying whenever she got yelled at for whatever thing the Grandmaster had been angry about that day. The last time had been because she had tried to stop her brother from being turned into a machine. She knew he wasn’t dead and refused to buy that story. Unlike her mother, who had been oblivious and always believed her father’s lies, she wasn’t as stupid as he pretended she was.

A lifetime’s worth of memories flashed through his mind all at once: Playing together as children. Sneaking off together at night as teenagers so they could pretend their lives were normal for a change. Talking her down from a ledge as adults…

These memories were just that...something he remembered that had once happened. They elicited no emotional response from him, not even the same emotions that he had felt at the time they’d occurred. He didn’t recall any sadness at seeing her alone, scared, and hiding from their father. He didn’t recall any anger when he heard rumors that Sub-Zero was sleeping around with her, or at the very least trying to. He didn’t recall any of the joy he felt whenever she actually showed him any of the familial affection towards his accomplishments that his father never gave either of them. The memories were empty and hollow and no more different than an event documented in a history book.

She lowered her hands from her mouth and stood there submissively, knowing there wasn’t anything she could do to prevent whatever Sektor would do next. Her brother began to approach her and stopped short of just in front of her. He cocked his head as though trying to figure out what to make of her and reached towards her to push some of her hair out of her face, then grabbed her and forced her to look at him. The gesture left a streak of crimson against her cheek and for a moment they both stared at each other.

Sektor’s diagnostics turned her up as _“Nonkombatant, threat level=0”_. The former grandmaster had regarded his own daughter’s existence as just being yet another one of the many disappointments he’d feel in his children. She was just a woman, which meant she wasn’t even really a member of the Lin Kuei. He had refused to accept or train any women who might somehow end up in their ranks and they were mostly kept around for the entertainment of the “real” members of the Lin Kuei. Such a use was now obsolete, which meant she had no purpose. She was nothing.

Sektor’s computer rationality deduced that it was better not to waste any time or energy killing someone who mattered so little. He turned and left the way he came, stepping over the rapidly cooling corpse of his mother in the doorway on his way out. He did not spare her a glance nor did he comprehend the pain and regret in her eyes when his sister realized what her brother had become.

Cyrax was waiting for him outside. His allegiance had shifted quite easily. Sektor’s programming far outpaced the others and it didn’t take him long to figure out how to rewrite the others to see themselves as subordinate to him. All he had to do was make them understand what he already knew, that as the strongest warrior, he was the rightful Grandmaster of the Lin Kuei.

And now that he had control, nothing was going to stop it from staying that way.

**Author's Note:**

> My writing output seems to be increasing in this pandemic. On one hand at least I have some of my creative strive back, on the other this is only because I can’t go to work so I’m not getting paid and this is not a good thing. Readership seems to be increasing too on the other, other hand, so maybe this isn’t completely a bad thing if I look at it from the right angle. If only I could get paid for fanfiction views...


End file.
